Longmont's Dry Creek Park grass needs until 2015

Playground, disc golf course to open by end of month

Portions of Dry Creek Park will open soon but the main playing field will still not be open for use because of problems encountered trying to grow grass. (Lewis Geyer / Longmont Times-Call)

Once again, it's wait 'til next year for Dry Creek Park.

Well, not entirely. The playground, the disc golf course and the restrooms should be ready to go by the end of this month. But the grassy fields meant to handle soccer, rugby and numerous other sports and activities still need one more growing season.

"The grass is not ready to be used," said Kim Shugar, Longmont's natural resources manager. "It just needs a little more time."

That likely means spring 2015. And it means the second straight year-long delay for the multipurpose fields, which were initially postponed in 2013 after discovering the soil had a high salt level, making it more difficult for the grass to take root.

This year, at least, there is grass. Treatment with a sulfur burner during the warm seasons and flushes with potable water have helped it start to take root. But it's still too fragile to be walked on yet, Shugar said, which means it's still time for the classic warning: Keep off the grass.

"Once it's established, it'll be OK, but it's just that initial growing period," Shugar said. "It's looking pretty good. It's just not ready for public use yet."

A sulfur burner injects sulfur into the irrigation lines to lower the soil's pH level. That work began last year, but had to break off for the winter after two weeks; it resumed in spring.

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The park in southwest Longmont, near Clover Basin and Grandview Meadows drives, is planned to eventually be 81 acres. Cost of the nearly complete 25-acre Phase 1 of the park — the four multi-use fields, the disc golf, the playground and trails to Blue Sky Park and Blue Mountain Elementary School — is estimated at about $3 million. That includes $700,000 of lottery funding through Great Outdoors Colorado, awarded in 2010.

The good news: once the grass is set, it should be able to go back to raw water, Shugar said. That means no additional $200,000 onto the bill for a new irrigation system.

Even the delay shouldn't add much to the cost, she said. At this point, it's mostly just watching the grass grow.

"We would still be tending it and mowing it and watering it anyway," Shugar said.

A specific date for the late June opening of the rest of the park has not yet been set.

Portions of Dry Creek Park will open soon but the main playing field will still not be open for use because of problems encountered trying to grow grass. Photos taken Monday morning, June 9. (Lewis Geyer / Longmont Times-Call)

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